


give in to the great unknown

by ceevee



Series: Hermitcraft x Dream SMP [1]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Hermitcraft RPF, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hermit!Tommy AU, Hurt/Comfort, Suicidal Thoughts, tommy's exile arc
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-14 21:42:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28677615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceevee/pseuds/ceevee
Summary: Xisuma: long story short, we have a new guy on the server. Name's Tommy. Blonde, skinny. looks about twelve. said he didn't know how he got here but he couldn't go back to where he was. Going to keep an eye on him for a few days, but let me know if he gives you any trouble?CubFan135: long story long?Tommyinnit finds himself on the Hermitcraft server. Eventually, he finds himself a family.
Series: Hermitcraft x Dream SMP [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2101848
Comments: 155
Kudos: 1746





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [to those who carried on](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28085553) by [redcursive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redcursive/pseuds/redcursive). 



> When I got into Hermitcraft during quar I didn't think I'd end up here. 
> 
> This pulls a lot from [red's](https://redorich.tumblr.com/) and [petrichormeraki's](https://petrichormeraki.tumblr.com/) Hermit!Tommy premises; thanks for sucking me in. Come yell about block men with me [at my tumblr.](https://ihatethefall.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Title from Juniper Vale's 'Everything is Color'
> 
> Some content notes: content typical of the Dream SMP- some casual discussion of violence, some dick talk, a section with some discussion of 'voices' in the style of Technoblade's chat, a minor reference to suicide in the final section.

It's Joe Hills who sees him first.

He's not doing anything special, just roaming around his base. Checking in on the dogs, tidying up a couple of blocks. Nothing exciting. 

And then one of the dogs growls, and his head snaps up and toward the direction of the sound. 

There's something moving in the trees. 

“Anyone out there?” Joe calls.

Silence.

Joe squints for a minute, and then he walks through the field toward the trees, picking his way through the pack of dogs currently twining around his ankles and making general nuisances of themselves. By the time he has them all sitting and can clear the yard, whatever he thought he saw was gone. 

_Huh,_ Joe thinks. 

"Huh," he says out loud. He pulls out his comm and taps out a quick message. 

JoeHills: you whitelist anyone lately?

Joe takes to the skies, gliding in slow, lopsided circles around his base. 

Xisuma: no

Xisuma: ? 

_Huh._

Joe spots him after a minute or two- a small figure racing through the trees, away from his base and toward nothing in particular. It's too person-shaped to be a mob, but any of the Hermits would just stop and say hello, wouldn't they? Joe sets off another rocket, and the figure drops to the ground. They stay there, frozen, as Joe glides by above them, and then the minute Joe loops back around they're off and running again and- 

Night had fallen just enough for mobs to spawn. Joe lands on a tree to get his bearings. 

_go check spawn now,_ Joe types as the familiar clanking of someone trying to fistfight a skeleton starts up. 

There’s a loud, sharp cry. The figure vanishes. BDubs sleeps, and the sun comes back up. Joe reorients himself toward spawn and takes off again. 

By the time he finally makes it to spawn, Xisuma has apparently already given their new visitor- a young guy, young enough to still have a bit of a baby face and limbs that are a little too gangly- a rundown on the server.

"No griefing, no stealing, no doing or saying anything that will get anyone tee-oh-essed, Collabing with others helps everyone out, but you don't have to if you don't want to. Joe, this is Tommy," he adds. "He's going to be on the server for a bit." Joe nods at the man- the kid, Joe thinks, now that he's gotten a better look at him. "Now. We're pretty late in the season, so..." Xisuma pauses, rifling through his pockets. "Joe, you still aren't doing diamonds, right?" 

"Nah," Joe says. Xisuma scowls at him. 

"Right," he says. "Okay, I've got...." he places his Ender Chest and rifles through it. Tommy looks up. He's got that too-fresh, frantic look you sometimes get after a respawn, where your body is bright and clean and energized but whatever hurt you is still ticking away under the surface. 

"Lemme look in there," he says. 

"Yeah, one sec," Xisuma says, head nearly fully inside the chest. The kid bounces impatiently, and as soon as the lid creaks shut he's yanking it back up, eyes roving through the contents. He must find what he's looking for, because he exhales and it's like his spine melts, the tension draining out of him and leaving a tall, tired kid behind. 

"I've got...twenty two blocks," Xisuma says. "Take half, that should get you started. You can repay me by helping me figure out how you got here in the first place." The kid nods. "Okay! I guess, ah, I guess we'll leave you to it! Unless you have any other questions for me?" 

"How many have I got?" Tommy asks. 

"Eleven blocks is ninety-" 

"No, I mean-" Tommy's hair is the color of hay and long enough to hang down across his eyes. He shoves it back impatiently. "How many lives?" 

"You just respawned," Joe says slowly. "It isn't hardcore." 

Tommy doesn't even look in his direction. "By my count that should'a been at _least_ three. Is this my last one?" he asks Xisuma. 

"Let's say you've got twenty-five, and if you start to run low, come talk to me," Xisuma says easily. Joe stares at him, but Xisuma doesn’t look at him either. Tommy, though, nods and sticks out a skinny arm to shake on it. 

There's an awkward couple of minutes where Xisuma offers Tommy his elytra and a handful of rockets to get him back to the mainland and Tommy shakes his head vehemently and tells them he'd rather swim. Luckily, between Joe's earlier cleanup and Xisuma's respawn kits, they manage to scrounge together a boat, and with an awkward 'bye', Tommy rows away. Xisuma and Joe watch him go until he hits render distance, and Joe takes another beat to try and process the last fifteen minutes. 

"So," he finally says. "What was all that about?" 

Xisuma: long story short, we have a new guy on the server. Name's Tommy. Blonde, skinny. looks about twelve. said he didn't know how he got here but he couldn't go back to where he was. Going to keep an eye on him for a few days, but let me know if he gives you any trouble?

CubFan135: long story long? 

Xisuma: I'll DM you.

Mumbo and Grian flip a coin to see who gets to visit the new kid first. The coin flip is actually 'setting a chicken loose and seeing who it runs to first', but it's the principle of the thing. Grian thinks he has the better claim, being the last person to join the server, but Mumbo is trying to assert 'joined the server as a teenager' rights. The chicken goes to Grian, Grian sticks out his tongue, and then they both immediately trip onto the puzzle of figuring out where the new kid has actually set himself up. 

Xisuma: he keeps holing up in other people's bases. try a couple of the starter bases? I can track down coords in a few. 

_np i'll figure it out_ , Grian texts back and takes to the skies. 

He swings through the jungle bases, since they had the Great Chicken Decision at Mumbo's place. Someone could probably spend the whole season in Keralis's city, if they wanted, and it'd be a hell of a thing to try and find them. He peeks in a couple of windows, does a couple of loops, and then gets the bright idea to just text the kid himself. 

Grian: Hi! Want to meet up somewhere? I'd like to introduce myself! 

TommyInnit: ok

The coords he gives are close to the mansion, and as Grian comes down for the landing, he actually watches Tommy sneak out of his old hobbit hole. 

"I was just looking," he says as Grian lands. "I didn't take anything." There are bread crumbs on his face. Grian pretends not to notice as he wipes his mouth across his sleeve. 

"No worries," Grian says. "I don't even know what I have in there anymore, I've got too many chest monsters back up at the mansion." The kid nods hesitantly. 

"I'm Tommy," he offers eventually.

"Grian! I live just up the hill- well, you've probably seen it." He laughs a little awkwardly. The kid being nervous is making him nervous, in a way he can't quite place. "I, uh, I just wanted to say hello. I joined the server back in season 6, and we're partway through season 7 now, so until you came by I was the newest hermit! And now it's you! So if you need to ask somebody stupid questions, you can always ask me, because I already asked Xisuma them two years ago." 

"Okay," Tommy says. "Uh. Xisuma's the admin, and Scar's the mayor, right? Which one of them is actually in charge?" 

It's… not a _stupid_ question, not at all, but it's a strange one. "Xisuma is the guy who keeps the lights on, and Scar's in charge of the Cowmercial District more than anything. Nobody's _really_ the boss here. Scar makes rules sometimes, but it's pretty much an honor system," Grian says carefully. Tommy frowns a bit. 

"Right, but if someone blows up someone else's base, who's gonna do the yelling?" 

"Probably the person whose base got blown up." Now _Grian_ frowns. "You aren't planning on blowing up any bases, right?" 

"No! It's a- it's a hypothetical." 

"Wellllllll," Grian says slowly. He's missing something in this conversation, and without knowing what it is, he's roaming around in the dark. "Ren's base got blown up on accident this spring, and the Boomers apologized and offered to help him out later if he wanted. If you- or someone," he corrects hastily- "if someone blew up a base, the person whose base it was would probably want the base-blower-upper to apologize and help gather resources to fix it. Maybe help rebuild, too." 

He can see Tommy think this through- expressions flitting across his face as he digests. He can also see the moment when he decides to put it away for later. "Something's weird about your creepers here,” he says. “They don't make holes." 

"It's cool, right!?" Grian says. "We've got a bunch of little changes. Have you seen any of Cleo's armor stands yet?" 

They talk for another few minutes. Tommy never really stops being nervous, eyes flicking up to meet Grian's and then skittering away whenever Grian gets particularly enthusiastic, but it goes okay. Something about it make Grian's brain kind of itchy. After a few more minutes, when they hit a lull, Grian tells him to message him anytime and that he's free to keep using the hobbit hole until he figures out what he wants to do for a base. He takes off back up the hill, spiraling upward. Tommy jumps when he sets off his rocket, even though there isn't a blast. 

_How'd it go?_ Mumbo texts him.

 _Weird_ , Grian says, and leaves it at that. 

It isn't until later, when he's rummaging through chests and poking at a little piece of interior decorating, that the itchy, wandering-around-in-the-dark feeling crystalizes into something useful. "Oh!" he says. "Hmm." 

_I remind him of someone._

Well. Grian's always liked a puzzle. 

MumboJumbo: Scar for future reference please be sure to clarify whether you are talking about Baby Yoda or our newest server member next time you refer to ‘the child’. 

StressMonster101: maybe we should try not to refer to tommy as a child?

MumboJumbo: good point, he is taller than grian

Grian: RUDE

Iskall85: true

BDubs finds the kid pillaring up into the sky in the empty zone between False and Tango's bases. He watches, faintly amused, as the kid reaches what's obviously the end of his scaffolding supplies and leans over the edge to judge the height. He's using cobblestone to get the height- it's kind of adorable, in that old-school Minecraft way. Anybody would have loaned him actual scaffolding, if he had asked. Heck, Grian had said the kid had no compunctions about rummaging through his starter base for supplies. Half the server must have bamboo farms. BDubs isn't sure if it's stubbornness or pride that keeps him from reaching out. Curious, BDubs settles on top of a tree to watch. 

Tommy places blocks on all sides- not the end of his supplies, then- and produces a bucket of lava. A few more carefully placed blocks and jumps to get clear later, the kid has lava flowing down from nearly a hundred blocks up to meet the plains below. He places another block and swaps the lava bucket for water. And- oh. He's lava casting. That's a blast from the past. 

"You building a castle?" BDubs asks. Tommy startles badly, nearly falling off his perch. 

"Don't do that!" he wheezes, scrambling around on his tiny platform until he finally sees and can scowl at BDubs. "I could have fallen!" 

"You don't have an elytra yet?" BDubs asks, momentarily thrown. "We can get you one. Shoot, I think I can loan you one, if you want to go endbusting instead of buying one." 

Something strange crosses Tommy's face, uncertain and uncomfortable. It's hard to make out, from BDub's position, and it's gone before he can really place what he's seeing. 

"Fat lot of good you having wings would do for _me_ if you shouted me off my tower," he sneers instead, and BDubs lets it go. The kid's prickly, he's new here, he'll figure himself out. 

"So, is it a castle?" BDubs asks again. 

"It's the CobbleDong!" Tommy announces. He leans aaaaaaaalmost all the way off his pillar to place a single block of polished quartz at the top of the tower. BDubs winces. Tommy beams. There's a sharp edge to it, something challenging in the way it shows all his teeth.

 _This is a test_ , BDubs thinks. 

He doesn't know why _he_ gets to be the one being tested, or what he did to deserve it, or why Tommy thinks that this is something he needs to do in the first place, but he _does_ know that nobody's caught the kid building before, so this is… significant. It's a significant cobblestone dick. 

"Are you gonna do the, uh..." BDubs gestures to the bottom of the tower vaguely. “You know.”

"Yep!" Tommy's still grinning that ugly grin. "It's gonna be _great_." His shoulders are pulled in tight. 

"Yeah. So. Here's a thought," BDubs says slowly, mind racing. The kid's clearly expecting a fight over this. Nobody's going to yell at Tommy for doing dumb kid stuff, but he's also a little hesitant to be the guy who lets the kid build an enormous dick unchallenged. He hums, sets off a rocket and does a loop around the tower to give himself more time, and he doesn't miss the way Tommy flinches at the sound, the way he turns so that his back is never to BDubs. 

Yeah, okay, he can do this. He can build an ugly cobblestone cock if that's what needs to happen here. 

"Alright. Yeah. If we put a little more of a cap on that first tower you've got there, do the little towers, maybe add a couple of walls and another little tower off to the side, what you can do is _tell_ people it's a castle, when really it's the..." he trails off.

"The CobbleDong!" Tommy repeats. 

"Right." 

Tommy turns to look at his enormous dick tower. "Can we do that, like, that mushroomy-looking roof at the top?" he asks, and man, False is going to kill him for ruining her view. 

"Absolutely," BDubs says. "With that dark reddish-purple wood from the Nether." Tommy cackles, the sound bursting out of his chest and taking them both by surprise. When he turns back to BDubs, his smile has lost that harsh edge. 

"I'm not gonna do any of that fussy detail stuff you all do," he says. 

"Nope, you take care of the towers, I'll texture it up," BDubs says. "You're gonna need to find more lava, right? I'm gonna go grab some stuff from my base." 

"Cool, cool," the kid says, carefully breaking his way down his original pillar. 

By the time they call it quits a few hours later, they've made several more towers, a little walled-off plaza, and a couple of angled structures that Tommy came up with while experimenting with his extra lava. BDubs made the promised domed roofs, threw in some stone, stone bricks, andesite, the usual, and decorated the base with leaf bushes. 

"Bush," he says simply when Tommy frowns at it, and that wild laugh bursts out of him again. BDubs has to pretend to look for something in his shulker to hide his grin. 

Tommy waves to him from the door when he flies away, and BDubs is pretty sure things are going to be okay. 

A week or so later, Tommy tucks a small, roughly textured tower on the backside of BDub's castle and slaps a sign on it that says 

thanks 

from big T 

It's perfect.

Tango: Tommy’s been busy

BDouble0100: it’s a great castle isn’t it? 

Tango: It’s definitely something!

ImpulseSV: oh, it’s a CASTLE. 

The sun is shining, the water’s lapping at his feet, and Tango is terraforming an island.

He’s got Tommy helping him out; the kid seems less interested in building his own base and more curious about sticking his nose in every corner of everyone else’s. Scar and Keralis have both mentioned seeing Tommy poking around their bases in the last week alone. Tango remembers avoiding adults at all possible opportunities when he was Tommy’s age, but it seems like Tommy seeks out their attention more often than not. He follows Grian around like a puppy, he watches them argue about dumb stuff in the shopping district like they’re putting on a special performance just for him. He doesn’t act out, really: nothing’s gone missing, nothing’s been griefed. He just...doesn’t seem to like being alone. 

Tango doesn’t mind. Tommy’s skittish and prickly, but if you can manage to get him to actually listen to something, he does just fine. He’s an extra pair of hands, and he doesn’t mind when Tango passes him the grindy work. Tango can hear him humming to himself as he leans over the side of the island and drops down sand, blocks plopping into the water to pile up at his feet.

He turns his attention to the bay. "So, chat, I'm thinking: Steamboat Willie," he says, framing the space with his hands spread. "A whole big thing right in here, maybe fifteen, twenty blocks high? Taller than the trees, easy, and I know we built those tall. I was thinking about doing it in black and white, go real classic with it." 

Chat responds with its usual flurry of excitement, and Tango grins. 

"I'm not totally sure I want to chance having the Mouse shut down our server, so no, probably not." He starts outlining the space where the ship will rise out of the water, white concrete sitting cleanly on top of the water. "Should we go one down, do you think? I don't know if it's worth doing the whole underside.” He ducks underwater to check the depth. “Hmmm. I feel like I’d have to do something underwater and do like, a porthole if I was going to build out the bottom. Hey, Tommy? How do you feel about Spongebob?” Tommy makes a face. “Yeah, me too.” 

A voice in chat reminds him about the wheel on the steamboat. “The wheel? Like the steering wheel? Oh, no, you're right, the wheel on the side. Hmm." He rockets into the air to re-examine the space. "Yeah, we might have to dig out the bottom a bit there. Shoot." 

"Who are you talking to?" Tommy asks. He’s sitting on top of the shulker box, looking at Tango strangely. Tango jumps, which is a bit of a trick, considering he's still mid-air. 

"Sorry, Tommy. Got sidetracked talking to chat. You finish with that bit of the island? I've got another shulker of sand somewhere, gimme a minute. No, guys, I’m _not_ doing an ‘Under the Sea’ bit, I said I didn’t want the Mouse hearing about us." 

"You've got a shulker just for _sand_ ? No, fuck, wait-" he shakes his head, making another face. Tango lands on the sand in front of him, fighting a smile. The impulse fades, though, when Tommy looks back up at him and his expression is just _shattered_ , startled and hurt and afraid. 

"You've got voices? In your head?" Tommy asks, and his voice cracks in two different places. Tango’s stomach drops. Whatever bullshit chat was saying fades away. He’s somehow lit a fuse he didn't know Tommy had, and now he’s scrambling to figure it out before everything blows up in his face. He sits on the edge of the island carefully, the water just below his feet. Tommy’s still perched on the shulker, hands clasped around his knees. 

"Ye-ahh," Tango says tentatively. "Nothing too-" _crazy_ , he almost says, and pivots- "interesting. It's mostly just thoughts on builds or wondering what the plan is today or suggestions that are occasionally helpful but mostly not." 

Chat, on the whole, responds with some variation on 'fair'. 

"What about you?" Tango asks carefully. "Plenty of people have them, if that's what you're worried about." He winces- the kid's probably going to balk at that. _He's not worried, no, what would he ever be afraid of? He’s not a_ _baby. _ But Tommy's staring into the water, obviously grappling with something. Tango watches something dark and hurt ripple across his face, before it falls into a stony blankness. 

"My br-" he cuts himself off with a sharp shake of his head. "Someone I knew," he corrects, and his voice has gone completely flat, "had voices that demanded blood. Always. Constantly. Just violence and blood." He slides down off the shulker to sit in the sand next to Tango, and Tango has to dig his fingers into the sand to stop himself from reaching out. 

"I'm sorry," he says after a moment. "That must have been hard for them. Hard for you, too, if you cared about them." 

"I don't," Tommy says thickly, pushing the heel of his hand into his eye. "I don't care about him. He _hurt_ me." His voice breaks again, and he shakes his head hard, squeezing his eyes shut. 

"I'm sorry," Tango says again, uselessly. Tommy folds in on himself, pulling his knees back up to his chest. Tango shifts to sit beside him, and Tommy leans against Tango's shoulder, tipping his weight against him until he's half in Tango's lap. Tango puts an arm around him and holds on, lets the kid ride out the storm of hurt and betrayal and loss until it's finished with him.

"I’ll try and remember not to talk to chat when we’re working on stuff," Tango says, when Tommy's shudders have subsided into stillness. 

"It's alright," Tommy says. "I just wasn't expecting it." He's quiet for a moment. "They really don't hurt you?" He asks, voice small. “You aren’t afraid of them?” 

"Nope," Tango says. "Not a bit." Tommy makes a thoughtful noise and pulls himself away from Tango, up and back together. He can see Tommy folding back into himself, putting the jagged edges away where he thinks no one else can see them. It makes something in Tango’s ribs ache. 

"It's okay to miss people, even if they hurt you," Tango says hesitantly. He wants, helplessly, to be able to fix this the way you can fix an awkward build, a fussy circuit. He wants Tommy to know that even though he can't fix it, he would. 

“Yeah.” Tommy rubs at his eyes again. "Um. Does your, uh, chat have an opinion on the fact that you have a shulker _specifically_ for sand, because I certainly do." 

"Yeah?" Tango says, climbing to his feet. He puts away the part of his brain that is usually tuned into chat; they can wait. 

"Yeah, it's that it's absolutely fucking crazy. How many shulkers do you _have?_ That you can use one just for sand?!" 

"I've actually got a few with sand," Tango says, and Tommy lets out an outraged screech. He launches into a tear about the value of shulkers, which is another thing Tango quietly makes a note of, but as Tommy rambles at Tango and Tango rambles back, the moment fades. 

They finish the island together, just the two of them. 

Tango: Anybody we know with a particularly troublesome chat? 

Xisuma: This one, sometimes.

MumboJumbo: true

xBCrafted: true

Zedaph: true

Tango: Harsh. 

Tango: Seriously, though, let me know if you think of anyone.

There are phantoms in the sky outside Tommy's base. 

Mumbo stares up at them, frowning as someone sleeps and the sun pops back up. The mobs catch fire, screeching loudly for a minute or so before dissolving into flame. Phantom membrane drifts down from the sky. Mumbo pockets it, rubbing his fingers against the silky material thoughtfully. 

He takes a lap around Tommy's castle, which has slowly grown a few more towers and a courtyard paved with polished diorite. There are bits of phantom membrane scattered everywhere- caught along stone and wrapped around bushes. 

Phantoms aren't uncommon, really- it's not like they don't have farms across the server, and goodness knows they've all spent enough time not worrying about sleep when BDubs is always willing to take care of it- but. But it's interesting to see so many of them in one spot. It’s interesting that Tommy never seems to sleep. 

Mumbo retreats back down the road from Tommy's base, pausing to think once he's out of sight. 

MumboJumbo: hey X

MumboJumbo: can you pull a stat for me?

Xisuma: ?

MumboJumbo: Tommy, beds

Xisuma: ...hmm. Not as high as it should be. 

MumboJumbo: he seems to have a phantom problem. 

MumboJumbo: give me a couple of days, I've got an idea.

So Tommy isn't sleeping, likely at all. 

Again, it's not unheard of- it's just strange. There are a lot of strange things about Tommy- the way he's so very careful about his lives even though they've all been trying to ease him into the idea that he can always respawn, the way he still hasn't picked up an elytra and flinches at rockets, the fact that Xisuma still has no clue where the kid came from in the first place. All of those other little things make this little thing a little more suspect. 

Mumbo treks back over to his base, turning over the problem in his head. He hadn't been strictly truthful when he'd told Xisuma he had an idea, but he knows that Tommy is still more skittish around him than most of the other hermits. He's mostly stopped avoiding interacting with Scar, but he always looks like he's facing down a ravager when he has to talk to Xisuma. If there _is_ something strange happening here, Tommy's probably not going to admit it to X unless he thinks not telling him would be worse, which is... something Mumbo will worry about if it gets there. 

Mumbo considers calling in Grian, but 1. Grian isn't exactly a master of subtlety, and 2. Grian has had plenty of bonding time with the new kid. Even after all these years, Mumbo vividly remembers being the awkward teenager playing blocks with people old enough to be his parents. Maybe Tommy'll open up to someone that's only a handful of years out of their teens? 

_Hey, don't sleep right away, I want to check something_ , he texts BDubs, and makes his way back to Tommy's base. 

The phantoms spawn the moment the sun sinks low enough for them to not immediately disintegrate. Mumbo frowns as Tommy appears at the top of a tower and shoots at them for a bit, ducking as they swoop down at him and firing arrows at them as they arc back up. After a while, he gives up and goes back inside, but still he doesn't sleep.

Halfway through the night, Mumbo gives in and texts BDubs the okay. The sun comes up, the phantoms burn, Mumbo worries. 

It takes some time to come up with a plan- it has to be something that'll intrigue Tommy but not spook him, something that'll get him to engage but not anything that'll hold his attention too much. 

In the end, it's redstone, because, well. It's always redstone. 

"I need a favor," Mumbo tells Tommy when he knocks on the door of his base. "I'm working on a project, and I need someone to bounce ideas off of."

"I dunno anything about redstone," Tommy says suspiciously. 

"That's perfect,” Mambo insists. “You'll ask questions that the others won't and it'll make me have to explain it." 

The potential for mechanized chaos proves to be a strong enough lure for Tommy, and they make their way back to Mumbo's base, where he's got a bunch of bits of redstone scattered about the bottom of his base. Mumbo sneaks a couple of sidelong looks at Tommy. The kid definitely hasn't been sleeping. He’s quiet as they make their way back to Mumbo’s base, his face drawn and dark smudges under his eyes. When they do finally get back to Mumbo's, Tommy drops into a heap on the ground, propping his chin against his hand and examining Mumbo's setup. 

"So Iskall built a water elevator in one of the shops a while back, and we started talking about the idea of a little working elevator with a shaft and everything that could make multiple stops, not just one that would stop at the top and bottom," Mumbo says, gesturing vaguely at the piles of redstone. "I figured if I weakly powered _this_ block and set up a flying machine-" 

He bullshits for a while, putting pieces together and taking them apart while Tommy watches. He asks a couple of questions, mostly about the basics, but he has a good head for the underlying theory. Mumbo ends up derailing his own fake project to build out something Tommy had asked about, and he's in the middle of explaining why someone would use a repeater clock over a piston or minecart clock when he looks up to see Tommy sprawled out on the ground, dead asleep. 

Mumbo grins. "Works every time." He turns off the repeater clock with a couple of taps and carefully starts making his way out of the redstone tangle he's found himself in. 

He works quietly in his base for a while, touching up some actual redstone builds and tooling around with a couple of different project ideas for the industrial district. He's in the middle of a response to xB about a potential collab when there's a noise across the base. He looks up in time to see Tommy bolt awake with a shout. He scrambles back into a sitting position, getting his back against a low wall while his head whips back and forth. His chest is heaving, and one more noise escapes him before he claps a hand over his mouth. It obviously takes him a minute to place where he is, but once he does, his shoulders slump, and he rubs at his eyes, frowning. 

_Ah_. 

Mumbo makes his way back over to Tommy, purposefully making enough noise that Tommy can't help but hear him coming. 

"You didn't finish explaining the thing," Tommy mumbles when Mumbo reaches him. Mumbo leans against the wall, resting his hip against stone. "I was listening, I swear." He still sounds groggy, despite how violently he woke. He's got some dirt smeared on his nose. It makes him look like a little kid.

"So the way I see it, we've got a couple of choices here," Mumbo says. He can see Tommy look at him suspiciously out of the corner of his eye, but he keeps his eyes on the scattered bits of redstone. "You can talk about it, and then you go back to sleep, maybe in an actual bed."

"I'm not fucking talking about it," Tommy says. 

"You could tell me or Grian what would make it easier for you to sleep, and we could try and figure something out," Mumbo continues. 

"It's not any of your goddamn business!" Tommy snaps. 

"Or," Mumbo says, slouching down the wall until he's on the ground next to Tommy, "you can come here, and I'll bore you to sleep with redstone mechanics and wake you up if it happens again, now that I know what to listen for." 

"You tricked me," Tommy mutters, but there's no heat in it. "You're not my fucking dad or anything." 

"No," Mumbo says, "but I'd kind of like to be friends, if that were alright, and this is what friends do." 

Tommy's quiet for a moment, and then he lets out a huge sigh and drags his hands down his face. "Shit. Okay. Tell me what a comparator is again." Mumbo laughs, getting to his feet and offering Tommy a hand up.

"Come on, let's find you somewhere more comfortable than the ground." 

Later, when Tommy has been tucked into a bed in a quiet corner of Mumbo's base and is most of the way back to sleep, Mumbo interrupts himself in the middle of an explanation of a flip-flop to ask, "Is it the falling asleep or the staying asleep?" 

"The staying," Tommy says. His words are starting to blur together. "If it was the falling, I'd just go sleep in a bunker." 

"A bunker?" 

"Mmmhmm. 's safe." 

"You're always gonna be safe around here," Mumbo says, and Tommy makes a vague noise, and then he's all the way asleep. 

GoodTimeWithScar: Ok

GoodTimeWithScar: Someone has built SOMETHING under the shopping district

GoodTimeWithScar: Etho is this your doing

GoodTimeWithScar: there are so many pistons

MumboJumbo: I think that may be Tommy

TangoTek: baby’s first redstone monstrosity

MumboJumbo: :’)

Tommy's started coming around False's base when she practices for MCC, and it takes her a while to figure out that he's looking to spar. 

He never _asks_ her or anything that would be helpful- he just sort of skulks around and looks at her sword but not her face and when she does finally ask him to spar, it's like part of him lights up and the other half closes down. 

They establish some rules: best of five, no shields, down to three hearts. Eating during is fine, potions are not. No enchanted armor- False has to go craft some fresh. 3, 2, 1, go. 

Tommy fights _dirty_ , fights ruthless and mean. He’s good, too- wins the first match because False was anticipating needing to go easy on him. His fighting style doesn’t quite match his size or his strength, but he’s fast and will take hits if it means he can land something on her. She wins the second round. The third round, though, he starts swapping to his axe.

It catches her off guard again, and she calls the fight to a halt. “No axes, Tommy.”

“What?” Tommy looks down. “Oh. Sorry.” He swaps back to his sword. 3, 2, 1, go. They fight. A moment later, he swaps again. 

"Tommy, drop the axe," she snaps, the third time he swaps between it and the sword. She sidesteps, dodges his next swing and lands a blow on his back. "I said drop it!" 

Tommy goes completely, utterly still for a moment. The axe makes a dull clank when it hits the ground, and False scowls. If that chipped the blade or her concrete, she's going to be right upset- 

But then there's another clank, and False looks at Tommy properly. He's dropped his sword next to the axe. False steps back into position across from him, but he doesn't look at her as he removes his equipment, piece by piece. Helmet, chestplate, leggings, boots. Pickaxe, shovel. A couple of golden apples. It all makes a little pile on the ground between them. One of the golden apples rolls a few feet before coming to a stop. After a long, long moment, a totem of undying joins the pile. 

Tommy still hasn't looked at her. He stares at his things for a few seconds longer, like he's trying to find answers in the pile of metal, but then he turns his head to the side and stares off into the distance. False somehow thinks he isn't seeing his base, off to the west. 

She doesn't know what to do, here.

So she improvises. 

She takes off her helmet and places it carefully on the ground in front of her. Leggings, boots. She folds her elytra carefully. She thinks Tommy is trying to watch, from the corner of his eye, but he still won't look at her. 

"Hey, Tommy?" 

"Hmm?" 

"Where are we, right now?" 

"We're... we're at your base," he says, and he blinks. Something in his face twitches. Carefully, very carefully, she places her sword and shield on the ground. 

"Yeah? Where's that?" 

"It's. It's your base. It's by Hypno's and Tango's and..." 

"And yours," she says, when he trails off. "You remember your base?" 

"I made a tower," he says, and for a moment she thinks she has him back, but then he says "And I was going to jump," and then she's moving carefully, getting between him and the outside edge of the platform.

"I don't think you did any jumping when you built with BDubs," False says, more cheerily than she feels. "Tommy, can you do something for me?" 

"You've already got my stuff," he says, his voice going flat. "I don't have anything else."

"No, I don't want your stuff," she says. "I just want you to look around for a minute and tell me what you see." 

"The sky. The water. A bunch of platform things,” Tommy says dully. “Um. The boat going up the wall. Dream. The main tower for your base. I think there's a dolphin out in the water. You." He looks at her, finally, looks at her standing in front of him unarmored, with her things in a pile at her feet, and his face scrunches up in confusion. "What- sorry. What?" 

"You back with me?" False asks. "You went somewhere else for a minute there." He looks at his own pile of things, and something terrible and lost flickers across his features before he bends down to start sorting through the pile. 

"I- sorry.” He smiles shakily at her. “I don't know what that was all about. Sure you didn't knock me out or something? I won't tell Xisuma" he says. It's interesting how he seems to think that the rest of them are in any way beholden to Xisuma. False leaves it. She takes a seat and starts pulling her boots back on. 

"I told you to drop your axe," she says. Tommy drops his pickaxe again with a clang. He swears loudly. 

" _Stupid-_ piece of shit, why do I even _have_ this-" 

"Tommy." He looks at her. She pats the floor beside her, and he slowly takes a seat. 

"You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want-" she starts.

"I don't," Tommy says immediately. 

"- _but_. You should know what caused it," False continues. "Your head went funny when I told you to drop your axe." He makes an unhappy little noise. False continues putting her armor back on.

"You know, other servers fight with axes instead of swords," Tommy says after a couple of minutes. "More damage." 

"I know," False says. "Goes through shields." 

"Mmhmm." 

"Wanna put our axes in a chest before we spar, next time?" It won’t solve what’s at the root of whatever False’s just uncovered, but it’s the first thing she can think of. 

"Maybe." Tommy stands. He's got all his armor back on, and his totem in his off hand. He clings to his axe for a moment, and then takes a deep breath and puts it away. "I think maybe I should be done for the day," he says. His voice is small. 

"Sure," False says. "I'll walk you home, give me just a sec." She texts Grian an SOS when Tommy lingers in front of the farm she's been working on, and he's coming up the road one way as she and Tommy come the other. 

"Tommy! Just the man I've been wanting to see. I'm going to need your help, I had this idea-" False immediately tunes Grian out; she gives them both a little wave and turns back to home, getting a good halfway before she's ready to use rockets. 

When she gets home, False tries to settle into some building, but she can’t stop going over the fight. The way Tommy had held his sword, the way he had stood, the way he swung like he wasn’t used to a weapon for his size-

She gives up. She has some research to do. 

_Alright, guys_ , she sends to the others, _What do we know about Dream?_


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tommy tries to adjust. Some days go better than others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Decided to keep these in one fic instead of splitting into multiple parts- there'll be at least two more chapters after this, but leaving it open for now. No new cws this chapter. Thanks to the anon who suggested a scene with TFC- that ended up being one of my favorite bits to write so far.

TFC's got a shadow. 

He spots the kid out of the corner of his eye as he's puttering around his base one afternoon. He's sitting under a nearby tree, munching on an apple and watching him. TFC ignores him. The kid'll say something eventually, or he'll get bored and wander off. TFC has mining to do. 

The kid's still lounging under the tree the first time TFC resurfaces, but gone the second. TFC figures he's probably gone off in search of someone more interesting to stalk. He reloads the smelter, dumps his cobble, treks back into the mine. 

It takes him a few minutes to place the creeping feeling that he’s being watched- the tunnels near the entrance to the mine have been lit up for ages, and he’d hear any mobs coming from a mile away. He turns to place another torch on the wall, and the shadows shift as the kid ducks back into a tunnel a short distance in front of him. 

"You looking for something in particular?" He asks, and there’s a telltale noise as the kid startles. What's his name, again? Tony, Timmy...Tommy, that's it. "Or do you stick your nose in everyone's branch mines?" 

"Do the others have branch mines?" Tommy pokes his head out around the corner, looking curious. "I would'a figured they'd just blast a big fuckin’ hole somewhere or dig a big-ass pit with all their fancy beacons." 

"They usually have to start with branches or caving, just like us," TFC says. "I'm a little slower these days." Tommy frowns, and- huh. The kid hasn't noticed. TFC leans down to roll up his pant leg. The prosthetic glints dully in the torchlight. Tommy's eyebrows go all the way up. 

"The hell did you do?" 

"Nasty mining accident a little before you showed up. Doesn't go away with respawns." 

"I'm sorry," Tommy murmurs. TFC shrugs. "What about your arm? Was that-" 

"Nah, that one's old.” Kid’s got a good eye- his left arm doesn’t act up much these days, but he’s always going to have better strength and range of motion with the right. “Got it years and years ago." 

"Was it a war?" Tommy asks. "Nobody here knows the first thing about fighting- except False, maybe, she's  _ really _ good, but it’s all the flashy kind of stuff for MCC- but surely  _ you-"  _ he stops when TFC shakes his head. 

"Ender dragon fight, a long, long time ago. Had a rough fight, ran out of potions, didn't end up healing it in time." 

"Oh," Tommy says. He sounds almost disappointed. TFC shrugs. 

"They don't make for very interesting stories," he says. 

"No, it's just-" Tommy hesitates. TFC shoulders past him, heading down the main tunnel. After a moment, he hears Tommy pull out his pick and follow him. 

They work in silence for a while, TFC working forward while Tommy chips out any ores. 

"Nobody here knows anything about battle," Tommy says eventually. He's not very loud, but the tunnels are echoey. "I mean- they fight each other sometimes for fun, and they do MCC and stuff, but they don't know anything about real war. I figured you would, because you're old and tough and shit." 

TFC doesn't look at him. This isn’t the kind of conversation you always want to look right at. "You grow up around people who fought?" 

" _ I  _ fought," Tommy says hotly. "I've been in wars. Real ones, not the bullshit that passes for it around here." TFC chips away at the rock. Cobblestone falls to the ground.

"Yeah?" 

"I- yeah. You don't believe me?" 

"I do," TFC starts to say, but the kid has dropped his pick with a scowl. He yanks off his shirt and steps closer to TFC, right into the light of his torch. 

The kid's too skinny, is the first thing that TFC notices. But then the light shifts, and- Tommy's got burn scars running up and down his ribs, crisscrossed with the tell-tale raised lines of a sword; a larger, angrier scar sits on the back of his shoulder. He looks at TFC challengingly, and TFC looks right back at him. 

"You get 'em back?" he asks mildly, and Tommy freezes. It's like he realizes what he's said, what he's done, and the fight drains out of him all at once. 

He shrugs one shoulder- the scarred one, TFC can't help but notice- and pulls his shirt back on. It's a little short on him, brushing the very tops of his pants. Someone ought to be looking out for him a little better. "Not enough." 

"I'm sorry," TFC tells him, and that, at least, Tommy can accept. He turns to the tunnel wall and hacks a little viciously at a clump of gold, and TFC gives him the privacy to regroup. 

"My hometown got destroyed," Tommy says to the wall. "A couple of times. Last time my brother did it." TFC makes a noise that he hopes sounds sympathetic. "Shithead," Tommy mutters under his breath. "Why'd he have to do that?" He drives his pick into the wall again, then turns. "Don't- don't tell any of the others about this." 

"About what?" TFC asks, eyes fixed firmly on the wall. 

"Right." Tommy scrapes the ore into a bag he produces from his pack. "You're not much like the others, are you?" TFC shrugs.

"That a problem?" 

"No," Tommy says after a moment. "No, it's...nice. It's quiet."

"Yeah," TFC says. "Come by anytime, kid." 

So. TFC’s got a shadow in the form of a tall, too-skinny kid who's a little too roughed up for someone his age. He comes by and sits quietly at weird spots in TFC's base while he works, and sometimes he'll look away and say something like  _ my father lost his wings protecting my brother from his own bombs _ or  _ I sometimes have nightmares about the withers  _ or  _ I miss him even though he ruined my life.  _ TFC will grunt sympathetically, will offer him something to eat or some grindy piece of work to take his mind off things or something interesting he found in the mines. 

He's a good kid. TFC's glad he's here, where the only things he has to fight are his own demons. 

ZombieCleo: anybody got some spare TNT? Got a bit of land that needs blowing up

ImpulseSV: sounds like a job for the Boomers!

TommyInnit: can i have the cobble?

Tango: don’t feel like doing a little mining off-camera?

Tango: name a time + place Cleo

TommyInnit: ugh

TommyInnit: mining

ZombieCleo: please take the cobble off my hands tommy <3 

ZombieCleo: will drop by the Boomers shop later. 

It's not often that the Boomers get a job when people are this far into the base-building process, but Cleo has decided that what her zoo  _ really  _ needs is an aquarium. She has a favor on them all for one reason or another, so they all troop out to her end of the world with their TNT and their machines. Cleo's off hunting for the nearest ocean monument that still has an Elder Guardian, but she's marked out the rough area for them to excavate. Tango raids his creeper farm, BDubs raids his shop, Impulse sets up the machines. 

The pit is tucked up against a hillside, and Impulse sets the charges on that end carefully, to not throw the terrain too far out of shape. The rest of the pit, though, they can just drop TNT on until diamonds and bedrock start shining through. BDubs climbs down to bedrock to pick out any stubborn bits of stone, while Tango starts loading exploded blocks into shulkers for Cleo- the space is hers, she might as well decide what happens to them. Impulse goes back to work on the side of the pit nearest the hill. 

The first set of TNT detonates smoothly, but the second set has a bad bounce that sends TNT off in a different direction. Impulse ducks under the blast, and when the smoke clears, the first thing he notices is an outcropping of black against the dirt and stone. He climbs down carefully, picking up detonated redstone as he goes for the next round of drops. The black rock resolves into the familiar sheen of obsidian, and Impulse frowns. He presses his ear to the rock, listening carefully for lava pops. Nothing. 

"What'd you find?" Tango asks from further below. 

"Dunno yet," Impulse calls back over his shoulder. "We don't have ruined portals, right? We shouldn't." They had generated this world before ruined portals, and Impulse could have  _ sworn  _ Xisuma only reset the Nether. 

"Nope!" Tango shouts. Impulse pulls out his shovel and pickaxe, chipping away at the surrounding blocks. A wall of obsidian slowly becomes visible, stretching down and back from the initial block. Impulse frowns, digging the other way. 

"What's this?" BDubs asks, dropping to the ground next to him. 

"Not sure," Impulse says slowly. brushing aside more dirt. "It looks like a blast chamber that someone forgot about?" 

"Seems like a waste of obsidian," BDubs says, digging straight back into the hill. "Let's open it up." 

The wall of obsidian is two blocks thick, and it opens into a small box: three tall, half a dozen wide, half a dozen deep. It's lit up with a couple of torches to keep the mobs out, and the back wall is lined with chests. Impulse's frown deepens. He cracks the lid on a couple of chests, just out of curiosity. One is filled to the brim with strength potions. Another looks split between fire resistance and swiftness. A third has water bottles, nether wart, blaze rods. 

"This is weird," Tango says from behind Impulse. "Why is this here?" 

"Dunno," Impulse says. "Doesn't seem like Cleo's style." There's a plain white bed jammed against the wall, a brewing stand at one end. He pokes through more chests. Armor, arrows, a handful of wither skulls. Something about the stockpile makes Impulse nervous in a way he can't quite put his finger on. 

"It looks like...like a panic room, kinda," Tango says. "Like one of those nuclear bunkers." 

"It's  _ weird _ ," BDubs agrees. 

"Who would even make something like this?" Impulse asks, pacing the length of the chamber and back. "Like, it doesn't even really make much sense as a build. Mumbo, maybe? If it’s supposed to be a vault? But there’s no redstone here anywhere." 

"Xb has that post-apocalyptic build," BDubs says doubtfully. "I don't think he ever built over here, though." Tango drums his fingers against the obsidian walls, scowling faintly. 

"I think this might be Tommy," he says after a minute. 

"Yeah?" Impulse hasn't seen a ton of the kid; he knows Tommy tends to lurk around Grian and that he has a hilariously tacky build somewhere right around Impulse’s base. "Why? I thought he was all about towers." 

"Yeah, but. I dunno," BDubs says hesitantly. "He was here almost a month before I helped him build that first tower. Maybe he was hanging out around here?" They all take a minute to look at the cramped space. It's a depressing little thing, that's for sure. Impulse doesn't know the kid, not really, but the idea of Tommy calling this home isn't something he likes.

"Why wouldn't he have taken it  _ down,  _ though?" Tango says. "He's got all kinds of stuff here, and I know he doesn't have farms built up. Some of this would be hard to get, or expensive to buy just to keep out here." BDubs hums an agreement.

"Maybe it's for emergencies," Impulse says slowly, feeling out the idea as it comes to him. "I mean, think about it. It's far from his base, it's blast-proof, none of us would have known about it if Cleo had decided to build ten blocks in any other direction." Tango and BDubs both take a beat to consider.

"Depressing, but. Plausible, I guess," BDubs says after a minute. "Kid's jumpy." Tango makes an agreeing noise. "So, what, should we tell him we found it?" 

"Better not," Tango says. "Let's just… cover it back up and tell Cleo not to dig there." 

They close the chamber back up, careful to keep everything the way they found it. Impulse sticks a torch on the side of the hill as a reminder, and they finish the job with far less excitement than typical. 

Impulse tries to put it behind him- it's none of his business, he doesn't know the kid. But. It's a lot of work for a kid with that few resources, for something that's just laying abandoned in a hillside. 

He goes out there a week or so later with his shovel and his pick. The elder guardian Cleo managed to capture keeps trying to give him mining fatigue, but he still finds the spot and clears away the dirt and stone without any trouble. 

Or, at least, there wouldn't be any trouble, except for the fact that the chamber is gone. 

The torch had still been on the hillside, but Impulse digs out a dozen blocks in each direction, just to be sure. There's no sign that anything was ever here- the space has been filled back in with dirt and stone and even a pocket of andesite. 

The chamber, and everything in it, has vanished without a trace.

GoodTimesWithScar: New rule: 

GoodTimesWithScar: Grian is hereby banished from the shopping district until Baby Yoda is returned to me.

iJevin: ouch.

VintageBeef: Harsh.

xBCrafted: that seems like an abuse of the mayoral office

GoodTimesWithScar: I'm frankly too scared of his storage to go on a rescue mission

Grian: hypocrite 

So, the Baby Yoda thing sort of...escalates. 

Neither of them really  _ mean  _ it to go anywhere, especially not after the Turf War and everything stirred up in that. Scar likes Grian: he's a great dude with gorgeous builds, he doesn't like that they keep ending up on opposite sides of scuffles. But Scar gets sidetracked with holiday builds, and then Grian builds a little bitty Baby Yoda sitting on top of Scar's drill, and Scar has no choice but to retaliate. 

BDubs obligingly makes a couple of Wanted posters (one for the capture of Moff Grian, one for the safe return of Baby Yoda) for Scar to distribute through the shopping district, and he makes sure to trek out to Grian's base to slap a pair of the posters on the front door of his mansion.

And then... honestly, Scar forgets about it for another couple of days. He chases Grian out of the shopping district once, when he catches him restocking the barge, but he's got a new build in the works and- frankly, Grian will get bored and give Baby Yoda back in a week or so, anyway. Scar relocates the Baby Yoda on top of his drill to a safer viewing platform, shakes his fist at Grian when he sees him, and moves on. 

No big deal.

Or at least, Scar thinks it's no big deal until he bumps into Tommy outside the concrete shop.

Tommy flinches when he sees Scar, which... unfortunately isn't a  _ new  _ thing, but it's something that Scar that they had gotten past at this point. Scar doesn't  _ think  _ he cuts a very imposing figure, but Tommy's been nervous around him from Day One. Keralis thinks it's the 'mayor' thing, and he may have a point- Tommy is always way more skittish when they bump into each other in the shopping district. Still, Scar offers Tommy a wave as he enters the shop, heading straight for the dyes. 

"Hey, Tommy! Working on a build?" 

"Picking up some cyan concrete for Grian, since  _ someone  _ told him he can't get it himself," Tommy says, and he sounds  _ bitter, _ angry in a way that makes Scar's heart skip. Scar looks sidelong at him, at the long, tense lines of his body. 

"Well, them's the breaks," he says lightly, flipping open another chest. "He knows what he needs to do to be let back in." 

"You're being an asshole," Tommy says flatly, which is startling enough that it makes Scar close the lid and turn to face Tommy. The teen's got his fists clenched at his sides, jaw clenched and eyes narrowed. 

"Tommy," Scar starts carefully, "Grian is the one who took Baby Yoda to begin with." 

"So, what, you get to just- you get to just banish him? It's okay to take away his things and keep him away from everyone else? Just because you have control over this part of the server?" Tommy's voice raises steadily, until he's nearly shouting. Scar blinks, taken aback. 

"I- I don't think I've kept anybody from Grian."  _ Tommy  _ has obviously been spending time with Grian, if Grian's sending him on supply runs. And Scar would have sworn he had seen Impulse hanging around Grian's base the other day. Come to think of it, Scar hasn't taken anything away from Grian either, unless Tommy's counting 'potential barge restocking profits', which seems like a stretch. Tommy typically seems less interested in the economic part of the server.

Tommy doesn't falter, though. If anything, he gets more tense. "I thought you were supposed to be friends! Friends don't kick friends out of their homes!" he shouts. His voice echoes against concrete. Tommy paces in front of the door restlessly, blocking Scar's path out. He has his axe out, and it's starting to make Scar nervous- he's not without his armor and sword, of course, but he  _ hates  _ fighting, and he thinks it would probably make whatever’s happening here even worse.

"It's not- it's not  _ fair _ , is what it is,” Tommy continues. “It was supposed to be a  _ joke,  _ and now you've ruined it! And why? To prove a point? To show that you're more powerful?" He whirls to face Scar, and Scar's stomach drops at the look in his eyes. 

"I thought you were  _ friends,"  _ Tommy says, and his voice breaks. Scar opens his mouth to reply, even though he has no idea what to say, and-

"What's going on here?" Xisuma asks, poking his head in the door. Tommy nearly jumps out of his skin. He bolts out the door, nearly knocking Xisuma over in his haste and sprinting through the shopping district. Scar and Xisuma both watch him until he's out of sight. 

"What just happened?" Xisuma asks slowly. Scar exhales, the tight feeling in his chest loosening now that Tommy's not in the room. 

"I don't know if I know." He walks Xisuma back through the conversation, and while Xisuma is taking a minute to digest, he shoots a message to Grian.

GoodTimeWithScar: I think Tommy just defended your honor for me

Grian: ?????

GoodTimeWithScar: probably time to settle the BY thing

Grian: be by in 15

"Grian and I are going to work it out," Scar tells Xisuma.

"Mmm," Xisuma says, staring out the window thoughtfully. "You know, we still haven't figured out  _ how  _ Tommy got here."

"You think someone banned him?" Scar asks. 

"It would make that make sense," Xisuma says, gesturing vaguely at Scar. "You okay?" he asks, after another moment. Scar shrugs.

"Oh, I'm fine. A little worried, now, though. I thought Tommy would have realized it was all in good fun." Xisuma's mouth pulls to one side.

"He doesn't do particularly well with conflict, I've noticed."

"Shoot." Scar sighs. "Do me a favor, don't let me get into fights with Grian the rest of this season. They always kind of....escalate." Xisuma snorts. 

"I'll do my best," he says dryly. "Alright, let me know if you need a hand clearing this up." 

"Will do," Scar says, paying for his dyes and heading out. 

Grian's waiting at his base by the time Scar gets back, Baby Yoda in hand. "What happened?" he asks as Scar lands next to him. He hands Baby Yoda over and Scar cuddles him to his chest absently, going through the story once more. 

They sketch out a plan for a dramatic rescue mission for tomorrow afternoon, after which Scar will graciously allow Grian back to the shopping district. Nice, neat, simple. Scar says he'll make sure all the posters get taken down, Grian says he'll talk to Tommy about how seriously they take fights on this server (ie, not at all) and how Grian's a big boy who can take care of himself.

"It was pretty brave of him," Scar says, once they’ve got a plan together. He hands Baby Yoda back, so Grian can have him to hold hostage tomorrow. "Considering how upset he was."

"Yeah," Grian agrees, with a sad twist to his mouth. "Wish he didn't feel like he needed to, though." 

It lingers with Scar, even after they stage their dramatic confrontation, even after Tommy catches him outside the shopping district and stammers out a hesitant apology. What had Tommy seen, to put that wild, hurt look in his eyes, to make him stick out his neck despite his own fear?

What had Tommy lost? 

Cubfan135: Alright, False and I both have three tickets to MCC, who wants in?

FalseSymmetry: Hermit field trip! 

Mumbo: I’ll go if you promise to make top 3

FalseSymmetry: Deal!

Rendog: We winning these!

False is going for her third MCC title, the first one of the new season. It seems like half the server has come out to cheer her on: even Scar and Mumbo are coming, and they've never been much for the PVP games. Cub's joining her on the team alongside fWhip and a friend of his. They're in pretty good shape- Ren's seem them practicing for weeks, waiting for the announcement for the next tournament. 

A bunch of them plan to head over at once, meeting in front of Town Hall for the trip over. False and Cub are long gone, but as the sun crawls across the sky, a small crowd assembles in the shopping district. Grian shows up just minutes before the agreed time, and tagging along behind him is- 

"Tommy!" Ren says. "Good to see you." The kid nods at him hesitantly. He's changed his whole look- dyed his hair darker and swapped out of his signature red shirt for a Purple Pandas shirt. He looks more like he could be Mumbo's little brother, rather than Grian's. "Nice look. Decided the dark hair will get you the ladies, huh?" 

"Figured it was worth a shot," Tommy says, and his smile is only a little forced. 

"Purple Pandas, huh? You been to one of these, yet?" Ren asks, and Tommy’s tentative smile curls into a smirk. 

"You could say that," he says. Ren cocks his head, puzzled. 

"C'mon, we're gonna miss the first event," Grian says. "I want to see if they're still selling merch with my face on it." 

They all trek through the portals, into the hub world, and out the other side. Tommy stumbles as he walks through, and Ren recognizes the feeling- the rest of the world always seems much  _ louder  _ than Hermitcraft. Tommy shoots a couple of nervous glances through the crowd, but keeps his head up. Ren nod approvingly to himself. Kid's come a long way in just a handful of months. 

Although- "Tommy?" 

"Mmm?" Tommy pauses, halfway through the entrance gate. 

"That's the participant entry- we go in down this way." 

"Oh, right," Tommy says, with a laugh that's obviously meant to cover his nervousness. 

It's a big day- False's team  _ crushes  _ at Build Mart, but they slip a bit in Hole in the Wall. They've got a couple of new games in the rotation, but nothing comes up in the first half of the day. Mumbo, Grian, and Tommy are all engrossed in Bingo when Ren hops out of his seat to go test a theory. 

It doesn't take him long- there's art and photos and memorabilia from all of last season's competitions, and there's only so many participants each round, especially considering how many of the crew stayed the same from week to week. He texts False:  _ you were right.  _ She'll see it after her next round. Similar messages go to Grian and Xisuma. They've got a plan. Time to set it in motion.

He slides back into his seat partway through Sands of Time. Mumbo is squinting curiously at some of the redstone traps, Grian arguing with him good-naturedly over the actual effectiveness of whatever trap Mumbo is trying to suss out. Tommy is watching their arena with part of his attention, but Ren catches the way his eyes keep flicking to the highlights feed. 

"You got a favorite?" Ren asks, giving the kid a nudge. "Besides Falsie, obviously." Tommy lets out a little laugh, eyes glued to the feed. 

"Uh. Will. Er, Wilbur Soot.” The corner of his mouth twitches down. “But. He's not here this time. The Blade's always cool," he adds after a moment. They both watch as Technoblade looms on the screen above them. "Hey, I, um. Do you know where there's an Ender chest around here? I've got something I need to check." 

"Sure," Ren says. "But if you just need money for a souvenir or a snack or something, I can spot you. You can pay me back when we get back to the server." 

Tommy smiles at him, startled and shy and pleased. "Thanks. But no- I've just got something I need to check." 

There's an Ender chest tucked away near the portal to the hub world, perfect for anyone who forgot their ticket or needed a bit of coin. The plaza is quiet with the competition in full swing. When it's his turn to use the chest, Tommy finds what he's looking for easily, pulling a compass out from where it's resting on top of a small pile of diamond blocks. Ren's seen Tommy wear the compass on a chain around his neck sometimes, when it's a quiet day on the server. He's never gotten a close look at it, but the needle's been spinning wildly every time he's caught a glimpse. 

Tommy takes a couple of steps away from the Ender chest, enough for the next person to use it, and stops, leaning against the wall with the compass cupped in both hands. And- 

Oh. 

The compass's needle is still, pointing steadily toward the arena. 

Tommy stares at it for a long moment. Ren barely breathes. The needle shifts slightly, moving with whoever's on the other end, and Tommy smiles tremulously. 

"Good," he says, so softly Ren almost thinks he imagined it. 

"You want to go find them?" Ren asks, and Tommy flinches, harder than he has all day. 

"I- no. I can't. I can't." Tommy shoves the compass in his pocket, and then pulls it back out and reopens the Ender chest. He drops it back in the chest and closes it with a  _ click _ . He presses down hard on the lid, like the compass might burst back out if he doesn't keep it locked away. After a minute, Tommy takes a deep breath and steps back to the wall beside Ren, picking nervously at the sleeves of his shirt. 

"You okay?" Ren asks, after a long moment where Tommy studies the ground intently. Tommy shrugs listlessly. "Do you want to go home?" He asks, and then immediately regrets it. Tommy lets out a dark little laugh, but doesn't look up. 

"I dunno," he says. 

"I'm sorry, Tommy," Ren says, and the kid heaves an enormous sigh. 

"Yeah." He runs a hand through his hair. "Okay, let's go back. I want to see how we did on Sands." 

Ren- Ren  _ wants  _ to push. But Tommy guards his secrets closely, and Ren gets the feeling he's already seen more than he was meant to. So he shrugs and falls into step with Tommy, and they head back to the arena. Ren catches Tommy scanning the crowd, once or twice, but he never shows any sign of identifying the person at the other end of his compass. 

False and Cub take second place, they all eat  _ way  _ too much popcorn, Grian buys a poster with his own face on it. It’s a good day. 

There's one other important thing that happens during MCC: between games, Ren watches as False and Cub bump into Technoblade and Philza on the sidelines. False says something to them, Philza responds, False says something else, and then there's almost a scuffle as Philza bristles at whatever False said, getting right up into her face before Technoblade steps in to pull him back. False snarls something right back at Philza, and then the interaction's over and done. Noteworthy in that Philza rarely ever loses his cool, but tempers always run a little high during MCC. 

You'd really have to have been paying attention to notice the book slipped into Technoblade's cape. 

FalseSymmetry: message sent.

Xisuma: Thanks, False.

Xisuma: Maybe now we’ll finally get some answers. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Hermits throw a party.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy _shit_ , you guys, I'm absolutely blown away to the response to this. Thanks for reading- I love each and every one of you commenters and kudos-ers. It's still technically the 16th here, so let's get some Tommy angst!
> 
> As always, I owe so much to [red](https://redorich.tumblr.com) and [petrichormeraki](https://petrichormeraki.tumblr.com), but this chapter ESPECIALLY goes out to the anon who sent petrichormeraki [this ask](https://petrichormeraki.tumblr.com/post/639783362429616128/imagine-closer-to-the-beginning-of-tommys-stay/) back in January, because I _immediately_ wrote the middle section of this chapter and then spent...several weeks trying to put the rest together. It's a bit different from the first two chapters, but I think it's for the best. Next chapter should return to smaller vignettes.
> 
> TW: pretty explicit description of a panic attack in the middle section.

The Hermitcraft server is never exactly _dull_ , but there are occasionally stretches of time when the turf wars settle down and Grian's latest prank is still in the slow burn of setup, where the days stretch out like taffy and you're left with no choice but to take a stab at the projects you've been putting off in favor of going on other adventures. 

For Iskall, it's his Omega Tree and the multitude of branches that still need leaves. He spends a couple of days puttering away at it, ripping through a couple of shulkers' worth and then going back and making sure what he's done is relatively mob-proof, but there's only so much leaf placement a man can do at a time. 

Iskall85: does anybody have a good excuse to throw a party? 

VintageBeef: do you need an excuse??

Hypnotizd: 'tired of working on my base' party?

Tommyinnit: never need an excuse for a rager

 _I think Tommy mentioned his birthday is soon,_ Xisuma DMs him. _Surprise party?_

TinFoilChef: You're too young to know what a rager is. 

Tommyinnit: am not!

Iskall85: you've all been very helpful, thank you

He drops off renamed cobblestone invitations at the base of everyone who he knows Tommy has spent time with. Grian helps fill in the gaps. It's a respectable list for the short amount of time the boy's been on the server; Iskall ends up doing a loop almost all the way around the ocean by the time he's done. 

Iskall himself hasn't gotten to know the boy as much as he maybe should have, but between the Omega tree and Pacific and the typical Hermitcraft shenanigans, he's had a lot on his plate! This party will be a good excuse to spend some time with him, maybe sway him over to his campaign against diorite. Mumbo mentioned that Tommy had a polished diorite floor in his base, and the idea gives Iskall the shivers. 

He enlists Keralis in helping him make a party plaza in the plains past the jungle Iskall lives in. They're both a little clueless on what Tommy might like, so they go with 'bright colors' and 'festive'. "We can always say we built it for something else, if he doesn't like it," Keralis says, and Iskall laughs. 

"We built it as a test! For, ah, something." 

"Something cool," Keralis agrees, laughing too. 

The agreed-upon time for the party is remarkably soon after Iskall brings it up, all things considered. Apparently _nobody_ feels like working on their base, and it’s close enough to Tommy’s birthday that they don’t want to let it pass them by. 

All that being said, Iskall doesn't have a ton of time to come up with an excuse. When Tommy answers the door, looking at him suspiciously, Iskall holds up a map. 

"In one of my chests, I found a map to a woodland mansion I don't think anyone has done," he tells Tommy when he opens the door and looks at Iskall suspiciously. "I got it from one of my villagers, early in the season and forgot all about it. Now, I don't know if you'd be interested, but-"

"Holy shit, yes, gimme one sec, lemme grab some gear." He turns and runs through his base, leaving Iskall standing in the doorway. 

"Ender chest!" he shouts.

"Yeah, good call!"

"Do you have a portal we can use?" 

"Oh! Yeah!" Tommy appears at the end of a hall. It's not the direction he had run off in: his cobblestone castle has continued to acquire more towers and hallways connecting them. It's starting to resemble more of a porcupine than anything specifically phallic. 

"Yeah, sorry, come on in. We gotta go this way, I made it its own tower." Tommy leads Iskall through a maze of corridors. There are chests piled everywhere, and the whole thing is still mostly cobblestone, but there are also paintings hanging on the walls and smooth stone flooring under his feet. The Nether Portal even has a frame, the same warped planks that make up his roof. 

They have to trek out of the tunnels a little bit to get to the portal Iskall set up for the new party plaza. Tommy still doesn’t have an elytra, so they make the trip on foot. Maybe they should have made sure he’d get one as a present, Iskall thinks idly as Tommy hacks a rudimentary tunnel through the netherrack. "Turn here,” he tells Tommy. “We have one quick stop to make- come on, we don't want to be late." 

"Late?" Tommy asks. "Late for what?" But Iskall is pushing him through the portal, and he can hear the Hermits yelling 'Surprise!' as he comes through, and then Iskall gets an elbow to the face as Tommy bolts away from both the party and the portal, sprinting for the trees in the distance. 

"Tommy?" someone calls, but the boy doesn't turn, doesn't even slow down.

"You alright?" Mumbo says, pulling Iskall up and peering into his face. 

"Oh, I'm fine," Iskall says, nudging Mumbo away. "What was _that?_ " 

"Dunno," Xisuma says. "Let me try and catch him." He takes off, flying low to the ground until the jungle trees force him up. Iskall takes a seat near the portal. The rest of the Hermits mumble to each other, settling back in to wait. 

"I did not think the decorating was that bad," Keralis says, sitting down next to Iskall. Iskall snorts. 

"Not enough stone, maybe?"

Keralis is opening his mouth to reply when he pauses, frowning. Iskall's comm buzzes. _Everyone's_ comm buzzes. 

_ <Xisuma was shot by TommyInnit>_

" _What_ the-" Xisuma pops up at a bed tucked behind a row of stripped oak. His helmet is slightly askew. "Okay. Party's on hold, we scared the kid. He's got a bolthole somewhere around your base, Stress. I sprung a trap and got a face full of arrows."

"Did you see where he went?" Impulse asks. He and Tango exchange glances. "We might have found something of his over by Cleo's base, a little while back. A whole little obsidian room, like a blast chamber." Beside him, Mumbo goes still. 

"Hell," Xisuma says. "What does he think he needs blast chambers for?" 

"They're bunkers," Mumbo says quietly. "He thinks this was an ambush, X." 

Iskall's stomach sinks. "I didn't mean to frighten Tommy," he says. "I figured he would like a party." 

"Don't worry, Iskall," Xisuma says. "Grian, you might be our best option here." 

"Yep," Grian agrees, jumping off the low stage to the floor. "C'mon, X, let's go find where your stuff landed." 

The two of them make for the jungle, leaving the rest of the hermits behind. 

Iskall watches them go and hopes he hasn't ruined things with Tommy before they've even really begun.

  
  


Tommy’s bunker- one of several, if Impulse’s hunch is right- is buried directly underneath one of Stress’s butterflies. It’s easy to see the trap, now that it’s been sprung: here’s a string, there’s a dispenser draped with vines. Fire is still crackling away on the grass, and Grian extinguishes a few spots while he tries to figure out what the hell’s gone wrong here. 

Finally, he gives up and goes for the straightforward route. “Hey there, Tommy,” he says brightly when Tommy picks up the call. “I’m outside your little hidey-hole, I hear you’re having a bit of trouble.” 

Tommy’s breaths are ragged and uneven. He sounds like he’s been crying. “I didn’t mean to kill him,” he says, and no, actually, he sounds like he’s been crying and hyperventilating. “You have to believe me, I didn’t _mean_ to, I’m sorry, I don’t wanna fight you, I don’t, _please_ I don’t want to-”

“Tommy,” Grian says firmly, and Tommy cuts himself off, gasping so hard that Grian’s ribs ache in sympathy. “Listen, buddy,” Grian says as softly as he can manage while still making sure Tommy can hear him. “I’m outside. I’m alone. I’m unarmed. Is there anything that’s going to blow me up if I try and come in there?”

“N-n-no,” Tommy says, and Grian slowly picks his way over to where he thinks the entrance is. He pulls out two dirt blocks and hits obsidian. As he carefully excavates his way to the entrance, Grian is torn between a rising sense of dread and being reluctantly impressed at the way the kid’s managed to sneak an obsidian chamber down here under all of their noses. 

There’s not much to look at inside, once he finally finds his way into the chamber. The obsidian is two thick at the entry, and Grian would be surprised if that weren’t the case on all sides. There’s a bed to set spawn, a couple of chests (Ender and otherwise) and one of Tommy’s precious, precious shulker boxes. A brewing stand is bubbling away beside the bed. Torches are slapped haphazardly on the walls to keep the monsters out. 

And Tommy- 

Tommy’s in the far corner of the room, loaded crossbow pointed directly at Grian. He’s shaking so badly that Grian’s surprised he hasn’t dropped it. 

“Hey, big man,” Grian says gently, dropping into a crouch. _No sudden movements_ , he thinks. “That crossbow making you feel better or worse?”

“I don’t want to fight you!” Tommy says, fighting to keep the bow steady. It’s not really an answer, but Grian thinks he understands.

“I know,” he says. “I know you don’t. I don’t want to fight you, either.” He keeps his hands where Tommy can see them. “So let’s figure this out. Are you ready for the plan? I’m going to put a block over the entrance so nobody else can get in. If you kill me, I respawn at the mansion, and we can try again. No big deal. If anyone _else_ breaks that block, I kill them myself. Okay?” 

Tommy shakes, knuckles white on the crossbow, but he nods. Grian braces himself for a rocket to the back when he turns to place an iron block over the entrance, but nothing comes. When he turns back, Tommy hasn’t moved an inch. 

“I’m going to sit right here, okay?” Grian says. “I’m not gonna come near you with that crossbow, but if that’s making you feel safe, that’s okay. I’m just going to sit right here until you tell me how I can help you.” And then he waits for what feels like a lifetime but can really only be two minutes or so while Tommy hyperventilates and struggles to stop spiraling and focuses on not blowing Grian up. 

Finally, _finally_ , Tommy lowers the crossbow, and then he shoves it away from himself and across the floor. Grian holds his breath, but the rocket doesn’t explode. “I’m sorry!” Tommy blurts out again, and he’s stumbling toward Grian and Grian’s rushing to catch him, reaching up to cradle Tommy’s head as he folds himself around Grian. Grian pushes him over to the bed and drops onto it with him, stifling a wince as Tommy tries to cram himself into Grian’s lap. 

“Okay,” he says, getting his arms around Tommy and holding on tight. “Okay, big T. I’ve got you. You’ve gotta breathe, bud, come on. Breathe with me. In. Out. In. Out. Shhh, shhh, it’s okay. Come on. In. Out.” Tommy sobs into his shoulder, but slowly, slowly, his chest stops heaving, the awful wheezing note in his breathing fades away. 

“I’m gonna let someone know you’re safe,” Grian says. “I’m not going to let anybody come here, though, okay?” Tommy nods, sniffling. “Keep taking deep breaths,” Grian reminds him as he taps out a message to Xisuma: _got him need 20 min he’s real bad_

Tommy’s curled in on himself, mumbling wetly into Grian’s chest. “I’m sorry I didn’t know- I wasn’t prepared for a fight, this was my closest spot and I- I thought things were okay, I- I wasn’t thinking- I don’t want to leave again, I don’t want to leave-” 

“Shhhh,” Grian says, rocking the kid gently. “Nobody’s gonna make you leave.” Tommy makes a hurt noise and tries to burrow in even closer. Grian rubs circles on his back and ignores the elbow in his ribs and tries not to let himself get distracted by wondering how things got to this point without anyone else noticing. 

“I know I said a while ago that I wasn’t going to push you on all your stuff you don’t want to talk about,” Grian says eventually, when it stops feeling like Tommy’s going to rattle apart in his arms, “but I’m starting to think that’s not working.” Tommy makes another unhappy noise. “If talking to someone else would be easier, that’s cool,” Grian tells him. “You can talk to Mumbo or Xisuma or False or… I dunno, anybody would probably listen, if you asked. But I think it’s probably time to think about talking about it.” 

“You’ll all look at me different,” Tommy says miserably. His face is still pressed against Grian’s collarbone. 

“I don’t think anybody’s going to stop thinking of you as a brave kid who’s seen some serious stuff just because you need some help dealing with it,” Grian says. “The only way anybody’s going to treat you differently is that we’re not going to spring surprise birthday parties on you anymore, we’ll give you a little warning before we ply you with cake.”

“I don’t know if I’ve been to a big party that didn’t end with battles or explosions,” Tommy says softly. “Or withers,” he adds after a moment. “Those are kind of both, I guess.” Above Tommy’s head, Grian closes his eyes against a wave of stupid, useless anger. 

“All the more reason to try one with us,” he says, when he’s sure he can keep his voice steady. “We can eat some cake and try a couple of minigames, and then a bunch of us have presents for you, and then we can eat _even more cake_ , and then you and I can hole up wherever you like and have a proper chat.” 

"I dunno if I know how to talk about any of it," Tommy says. "I did a lot of bad stuff. Maybe I deserved all this." 

"Tommy." Grian squeezes the kid in his lap even tighter. "You’re what, nineteen? No kid _deserves_ to feel like he's going to get sent away for getting startled by something and reacting badly." 

Tommy mumbles something incomprehensible against Grian's ribs.

"Hmmm?"

"Seventeen," Tommy says, a little louder. "I turn seventeen this year." 

"Fuck me," Grian says before he can stop himself. Tommy flinches, but a ghost of a laugh escapes him. "Well, if a nineteen year old doesn't deserve that, a seventeen year old _definitely_ doesn't."

"You don't even know what I've done," Tommy says, but he sounds uncertain. 

"Tommy." Grian leans back and puts a hand on Tommy's shoulder, pushing him away until he can look at Tommy's face. His bright blue eyes are red and puffy from crying, tear stains tracked down his cheeks. Tommy leans back and rubs at his face, pressing the heel of his hand into his eyes. 

"What?" 

"Half the server came together to throw a party for you because you're a good kid and we _like_ you. You're maybe a rude little gremlin, but so am I. We gotta stick together, you and me." He carefully reaches out to ruffle Tommy's hair. "Besides," he adds, lowering his voice, "I know you were trying to keep things on the down-low, but we've got some of it figured out already." 

"Yeah?" 

"Yeah. But let's not worry about it for a bit, okay? Let's go eat some cake." 

"You don't think Xisuma's gonna be mad at me?" Tommy asks, slowly clambering out of Grian's arms. 

"Nah," Grian says, stretching discreetly. "He was impressed that you managed to get a bunker under all of our noses." Tommy shrugs. 

"You lot are always letting people in instead of keeping secrets." 

"Yeah," Grian says, nudging him gently, "maybe you oughta give that a try." 

Before they make it to the edge of the trees, just out of sight of the party plaza, Tommy stops, turns, and throws his arms around Grian. "Thank you," he says into Grian's hair. Grian reaches up and pats him on the back. 

"Let's go see our friends, yeah?" 

Tommy tenses up as they approach the party, but Grian links arms with him. "Found the birthday boy!" he calls out, and there's a smattering of applause. The kid sticks to Grian like glue the whole day, but he does loosen up enough to have some fun; they bust out a couple of armor stand minigames, the long-time Hermits goad each other into telling increasingly silly stories, they demolish nearly a full stack of cake. Iskall apologizes profusely for misleading Tommy and promises to actually take him to the woodland mansion whenever he likes. 

BDubs gives Tommy building supplies. Joe gives him a dog. False gives him a pretty stacked netherite sword, and she and Tommy share a glance that Grian isn't quite able to interpret. Xisuma offers to take him to the end; Scar gives him a little plot of land in the shopping district that's gone untouched; Tango presents Tommy with an elytra and a lifetime supply of rockets. (Tommy flinches; Grian mouths ‘later’ at Tango.) 

Mumbo writes an IOU, and so does Grian- his plans haven’t come together, not quite yet. What happens there is up to Tommy, up to how much he's ready to let Grian in.

Despite everything, it’s a good day. 

The party's winding down; some of the older Hermits are settling in for a bonfire as Mumbo finishes mob-proofing the last little bit of the automatic lights on his way back to the portal. He bumps into Tommy and Grian, who are slipping away before anyone can notice them and make a fuss. Tommy smiles wanly at Mumbo. 

"Thanks for the party," he says quietly. "I, uh, I wasn't expecting it, but. It was fun. After I realized what it was." 

"I'm glad," Mumbo says honestly. "You, ah, feeling any better?" Tommy lifts one shoulder, making a face. 

"Grian wants to talk about it," he says, as if Grian isn't standing just behind him, close enough that their arms brush against each other. 

"I _have_ said that you probably should," Mumbo says carefully. 

"Tommy," Grian says, so quietly Mumbo can barely hear him over the murmur of the Nether portal, "if talking to Mumbo would be easier for you-"

"It's not going to be fucking easy, no matter what!" Tommy snaps irritably, squeezing his eyes shut. It seems like all three of them hold their breath for a moment. Tommy exhales first, opening his eyes and offering Mumbo a weak smile. "Can you- I'm going to need you to explain flying machines, after, if you're going to make me do this."

"Of course," Mumbo says. "Er. What are we- Were we talking now?" 

"Well, we’re not doing it here," Tommy says sharply. "C'mon." He turns and marches through the portal, Grian and then Mumbo following in his wake. 

When they get back to Tommy's castle, Tommy leads them down a spiraling staircase that stretches almost down to bedrock. He pulls out an Ender chest, opening it up and retrieving the compass he sometimes wears. He holds it with both hands for just a moment before gently placing it into a hopper. A piston door slides open, and despite the tension, Mumbo feels a funny little surge of pride at Tommy's setup. 

The room they enter is the most detailed build Mumbo's ever seen out of Tommy. It's got tall ceilings and a grass floor- Mumbo could almost believe he was outside, if he didn't know how close they were to bedrock. The space is big enough that the handful of builds aren't overwhelming; there's something that looks like a little van, there's a little garden with a beehive, there's a little bench with a jukebox at one end. 

Tommy goes straight for the bench, sitting down and pulling his knees to his chest. His mouth pulls to one side as Grian and Mumbo sit; Mumbo on top of the jukebox, Grian on the opposite end of the bench. 

"So what do you already know?" Tommy asks. 

"You're the TommyInnit from Dream's server," Grian starts carefully. "We've bumped into each other at MCCs before, I didn't realize until False brought it up." Tommy nods once. 

"What else." 

"You got here a couple of months ago," Mumbo says slowly. "You went missing from their server. There have been people trying to track you down for a while." Tommy looks at him sharply.

"Who?" 

"Dream. Philza. A kid named Tubbo." Grian lists off the names, and Mumbo watches Tommy cycle through a dozen different emotions. He can't decide if Tommy flinches harder at the first name or the third. "Philza and Technoblade know you're alive. They know you're here, and that you're safe. That's all." 

"Okay," Tommy says. "Okay. Shit. So. Um." He closes his eyes, takes an exaggerated breath. "So when I joined the SMP, it was with my- my brother, Wilbur." 

A slow, stammering, halting story comes out of Tommy, piece by piece by piece. Some of it's things they've put together already- firework rockets and betrayal and an enormous amount of weight on skinny shoulders. Some of the specifics are new- the fighting, the failed governments, the banishment. Mumbo pulls a bit of machinery out of his pack to fuss with as Tommy trips over his own tongue, because if he isn't careful, he's going to do something stupid like shout or break something or try to hug Tommy, who's still curled into a miserable ball on the bench. 

Grian is the one who finally pulls Tommy loose, shifting him around to tuck him into Grian's side. Mumbo takes Tommy's side of the bench. Tommy's trainers press up against his thigh. Grian wraps an arm around Tommy, Tommy's back pressing into Grian's ribs. There maybe isn't enough room for all three of them on the bench. That's alright. Some of the tension slowly eases from Tommy, and he relaxes further into Grian even as his story gets bleaker. Mumbo pulls the kid's feet all the way into his lap, propping his redstone contraption up against the tips of Tommy's shoes. 

"And that's all of it," Tommy says eventually. "I kept running, and running, and I- I dunno. I ended up here. I didn't want to be there anymore." He's quiet for a minute. "I didn't, but I- I like it here, but-" 

"It's okay to miss it," Grian says quietly. "It's okay to miss the good things." Tommy nods, clinging to Grian's arm. 

Mumbo... doesn't know what to do. Doesn't know what to say. He's always been better at problems that can be solved by moving the pieces of it around until they click. Feelings are slippery, harder to keep in his hands.

"You're always going to have us, now, too," he offers at last. It’s what he has- the weight of it settles comfortably in his chest. Tommy flinches, though, just a bit.

"If they know where I am, they’ll come from me. They’ll hurt you. They're better fighters than you all, and Dream- Dream doesn’t like it when things don’t go his way." Mumbo clicks his tongue, and Tommy looks up. Mumbo waggles the hand holding his contraption. 

"I’m maybe not much for fighting, but do you really think we couldn't hurt them right back?" A huff of laughter escapes Tommy, and Mumbo offers him a conspiratorial grin. "Besides, I'm pretty sure Grian's killed Dream before." 

"I'd do it again," Grian says, and even though Tommy snorts, even though Grian says it lightly, Mumbo meets Grian's eyes over Tommy's shoulder and sees precisely how much he means it.

"Are you gonna tell everybody everything?" Tommy asks, rubbing a hand over his face tiredly. "I know you lot are bad at secrets."

"I'll probably talk to Xisuma and False about most of it," Grian tells him, "and I'll maybe let the others know why today went wrong and what might-" Mumbo watches Grian hesitate over the word 'trigger'.

"What's going to make me freak out again," Tommy finishes quietly. He tucks his chin against Grian's forearm. "It's usually been better here," he offers. "I just thought that- it was-"

“You thought you were going to get hurt,” Mumbo says. Tommy nods, frowning apologetically. “Grian and I will figure it out, alright?” 

“Aight,” Tommy says, yawning hugely. “Sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about,” Mumbo tells him honestly, and Tommy hmmms. His eyes keep slipping shut, head dipping to rest against Grian’s shoulder. Grian shifts Tommy further into his lap, and after a minute or two, Mumbo starts talking quietly about the redstone he’s been putting together for Pacific. Tommy smiles when Mumbo starts, small and real, and his expression smooths out in a handful of minutes as the weight of the day catches up with him. Mumbo trails off as Tommy's breathing settles, and he and Grian sit in silence for another minute.

"So," Grian says quietly. "Shit."

"Shit," Mumbo agrees emphatically.

"Thanks for coming with."

"Of course. He's a good kid." Grian looks down as best he can at Tommy, curled up awkwardly in his arms.

"Yeah, he really is."

Mumbo knows one heartfelt talk in the dead of night doesn’t a recovery make. Before the night’s over- before Mumbo and Grian finish figuring out what to tell the other Hermits, even- Tommy will have a nightmare that Mumbo and Grian both have to wrestle him out of, and then he’ll be apologetic and skittish all over again. They'll all troop upstairs (Tommy will retrieve the compass, cling to it for a moment, and then shove it and the chain it's on in his pocket) and Grian will pester Tommy into bed, and Mumbo will pick up his explanation right where he left off downstairs. 

Still. In the morning, Mumbo will wake up with a horrific crick in his neck from sleeping in a chair and Tommy’s hand clutching his, with Grian drooling into a pillow wedged against the wall on Tommy’s other side, and he’ll think that maybe, just maybe, this is how it starts.


End file.
